Page 122 of Killing Mind

Kim had sent a further message asking where she was but nothing had come back.

‘She’ll be fine,’ Bryant said. ‘She knows what she’s doing. If she senses any danger, she’ll let us know.’

‘I hope you’re right,’ Kim said, as Bryant pulled up outside Neeley’s Auto Shop on the Forge Trading Estate.

‘So, the owner of this place reported our guy missing?’ Bryant asked as they got out the car.

‘Yep, George Neeley himself,’ she said, pushing open a heavy glass door into a small reception area. The space was tidy with two chairs and a self-serve coffee machine. A plug-in air freshener was doing nothing to mask the odour of petrol, grease and diesel fumes, thank goodness. It was a blend of smells that made her feel right at home.

The reception area was unmanned but a bell was attached to the desk. Kim pressed it and heard it sound in the workshop behind.

A man appeared from beneath a ramp and peered at her through the glass window.

He shouted something to a colleague and walked into the reception wiping his hand on a dirty rag. A blast of lunchtime traffic news filtered through the door behind him from a radio blaring somewhere in the workshop.

‘George Neeley?’ Kim asked, holding up her ID.

‘Depends. If he’s in trouble I ay sid ’im for months, if not I’m yer mon.’

Kim worked her way through the thick Black Country accent to understand they were talking to the owner of the business.

‘Mr Neeley, we’re here to talk about a man named Derek Noble.’

He frowned and glanced up to his left as though that’s where he’d find the information.

‘You reported him missing.’

‘Ah, yow mean Nobbie?’

Okay, Kim thought. Close enough.

‘Was he a friend of yours?’

George shook his head. ‘Employee. I gid the chap a job when he gor out of prison. Doin me bit for the community and he wore ’alf bad to be fair.’

‘Go on,’ Kim said.

‘Took ’im on to do a bit of sweeping and fetching and carrying, to free up me blokes a bit. Grunt work, really, but for a little ’un he ’ad some stamina and was a bloody hard worker.’

‘You knew of his past?’ Kim asked, trying to marry the two images of the same man. His life prior to prison read nothing like the picture George was painting in her mind.

‘Yeah, yeah but it was a scheme, wore it? It day cost me a penny to employ him for six months. The government paid and I got free labour.’

Kim was beginning to change her opinion on this man’s charitable motivations.

‘So, you kept him for six months?’

George shook his head ‘Nah, by the time the scheme ended Nobbie was wuth his weight in gold. He was driving customers to work, opening up, closing up, keeping the place tidy, the machines clean and valeting the cars before they went back out. We wore never goona let ’im goo.’

Her opinion warmed again.

‘Listen, I dow put much faith in our prisons but Nobbie surprised me. He wanted to change. He wore ’alf sorry for all the shit he’d caused and all the folks he’d hurt. He was trying to mek amends.’

Kim just let him talk.

‘In fact the last day he was here he was gooin to see somebody. A wench he’d hurt in his past. He day give me no details but showed me the mek up present he’d bought. Lovely it was. A silver necklace in a red velvet box.’

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